Why is vaccine uptake so low for care workers?

[Hamilbamil]

1/6th of workers haven't had it despite it being available and being urged to for months! We're at just under 80% take up for the country at large with most under 30s either still waiting or not even able to book yet for the youngest groups. It seems likely that we'll get to 90% without breaking much of a sweat!

I'm puzzled by this apparent correlation between being a care home worker and being anti-vacs. It seems totally bizarre, but there must be a reason.

There is another thread today about the fact that around 200 cats have died. It is thought it's related to dried cat food and as a result the cat food has been recalled and there's going to be an investigation.

As expected cat owners are no longer willing to feed their cats that particular food. No ones calling them thick or stupid even though the deaths are a tiny fraction of the cat population.

There is something really wrong when 200 dead cats provoke an immediate recall and investigation and a vaccine that is claimed to have injured and killed people has not.

speckled of course they do! This is semantics. When I was TTC, the timing was everything

My friend - who isnt TTC luckily - has had two heavy bleeds in the four weeks since the vaccine. If she was TTC she wouldn’t know when to time it so ergo she wouldn’t conceive

@speckledostrichegg - however, changes to your menstrual cycle can indicate a change in your fertility and fertility is influenced by environmental and physiological factors. Anorexics may stop having periods - and stop ovulating. Illness can affect hormones and thus ovulation. Chronic conditions, including autoimmune conditions, can affect fertility. Not ovulating regularly can affect fertility. If someone already has concerns about their fertility, it is hardly surprising if they fear anything that might disrupt it in any way if they are actively trying to conceive at the time.

because changes to your menstrual cycle do not equal changes in fertility

What a stupid thing to say.

[quote Walkaround]**@speckledostrichegg* - however, changes to your menstrual cycle can indicate a change in your fertility and fertility is* influenced by environmental and physiological factors. Anorexics may stop having periods - and stop ovulating. Illness can affect hormones and thus ovulation. Chronic conditions, including autoimmune conditions, can affect fertility. Not ovulating regularly can affect fertility. If someone already has concerns about their fertility, it is hardly surprising if they fear anything that might disrupt it in any way if they are actively trying to conceive at the time.[/quote]
but here the factors you're listing - anorexia, autoimmune disorders, chronic conditions are the cause of infertility (of which the symptoms include changes to the menstrual cycle)

changes to the menstrual cycle itself themselves, like a heavy period, are not an indicator of changes to fertility

www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/scots-care-home-resident-held-23937350

Scots care home resident ‘held down and vaccinated against her will’ as two workers suspended
The Care Inspectorate warned that unless there is marked improvement at Millport Care Centre it will cancel the home’s registration

Agree with those who say ethnicity is an issue (although there seems to be disagreement over whether the uptake is low).

People from various ethnic minorities have had targeted misinformation on social media etc. It's been in the news a fair bit.

“changes to the menstrual cycle itself themselves, like a heavy period, are not an indicator of changes to fertility” @speckledostrichegg - you are failing to understand an obvious point - the body’s reaction to a vaccine can affect ovulation, which is required for fertility. Yes, this is likely to be a very temporary state of affairs, but the AZ vaccine is known to provoke a very odd autoimmune response that was unexpected and is not fully understood, so it is not silly of women to worry if their periods are delayed, cease altogether for a few months, or their cycle becomes irregular, because it is a lie to say that this is never a sign of depressed fertility.

@Walkaround

“changes to the menstrual cycle itself themselves, like a heavy period, are not an indicator of changes to fertility” *@speckledostrichegg - you are failing to understand an obvious point - the body’s reaction to a vaccine can affect ovulation, which is required for fertility. Yes, this is likely to be a very temporary state of affairs, but* the AZ vaccine is known to provoke a very odd autoimmune response that was unexpected and is not fully understood, so it is not silly of women to worry if their periods are delayed, cease altogether for a few months, or their cycle becomes irregular, because it is a lie to say that this is never a sign of depressed fertility.

i'm really not failing to understand

Ovulation and menstruation are not the same thing. Changes to menstruation or the menstrual cycle do not automatically mean changes to ovulation.

The only autoimmune link to AZ is a CVST, a blood clot in the brain, which does not affect ovulation. You can't extrapolate this to to say AZ is associated with "odd autoimmune responses" that may affect fertility.

Vaccines in general do not inhibit ovulation, although it is true that a fever can in some cases. But again, a fever itself would not necessarily cause menstrual changes, and it is not something women routinely worry about if they have a cold/flu/stomach bug one month it may have prevented them from ovulating.

Current medical advice is that you can go ahead with vaccination even if going through procedures like ovulation induction and egg freezing -see below.

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n509

The guidance refutes any link between the vaccines and fertility. “There is absolutely no evidence, and no theoretical reason, that any of the vaccines can affect the fertility of women or men,” it says. People of reproductive age should get a covid-19 vaccine when they receive their invitation, including people who are trying to have a baby or thinking about having a baby in the future, the guidance says.

People undergoing fertility treatment (in vitro fertilisation (IVF), frozen embryo transfer, egg freezing, ovulation induction, intrauterine insemination, or using donated gametes) can be vaccinated during treatment, but may wish to consider the timing given the potential side effects in the few days after vaccination. “It may be sensible to separate the date of vaccination by a few days from some treatment procedures (for example, egg collection in IVF), so that any symptoms, such as fever, might be attributed correctly to the vaccine or the treatment procedure,” says the guidance.

People may start their fertility treatment immediately after being vaccinated, unless they wish to have a second dose before pregnancy, it adds.

The guidance also states that those who are donating their eggs or sperm for the use of others can still have a covid-19 vaccine.

@speckledostrichegg - yes, you are patently failing to understand. Telling someone they must have a vaccine does not allay perfectly reasonable anxieties. Talking to them in a non-patronising and dismissive manner is most effective at allaying reasonable anxiety. Delayed and absent periods are a massive indication you may not be ovulating, or that ovulation may have been delayed that month if not because you are pregnant (and in subsequent months if you have no periods for several months). So your posts have been disingenuous at best, given that you have no chance of conception without ovulation. And whilst I don’t personally for a moment think vaccines cause infertility, and that many cases of disrupted menstrual cycles may well not be a direct result of having been given a vaccine, it is again just silly to dismiss concerns about disrupted menstrual cycles and weird autoimmune responses, because until the link with AZ was proved, it was likewise argued that there was no evidence of a link and no reason to expect a link with rare blood clots, and the whole thing was a big and unexpected surprise to the scientific community. And as someone who had secondary amenorrhoea for three years and whose periods then just started again, and for which no cause could be found either way, I have little respect for people who seem to think they know and understand every cause of temporary or permanent disruptions to women’s periods.

And guess what - when I had no periods, I was told I was unlikely to be ovulating regularly, or even at all.

[quote Walkaround]@speckledostrichegg - yes, you are patently failing to understand. Telling someone they must have a vaccine does not allay perfectly reasonable anxieties. Talking to them in a non-patronising and dismissive manner is most effective at allaying reasonable anxiety. Delayed and absent periods are a massive indication you may not be ovulating, or that ovulation may have been delayed that month if not because you are pregnant (and in subsequent months if you have no periods for several months). So your posts have been disingenuous at best, given that you have no chance of conception without ovulation. And whilst I don’t personally for a moment think vaccines cause infertility, and that many cases of disrupted menstrual cycles may well not be a direct result of having been given a vaccine, it is again just silly to dismiss concerns about disrupted menstrual cycles and weird autoimmune responses, because until the link with AZ was proved, it was likewise argued that there was no evidence of a link and no reason to expect a link with rare blood clots, and the whole thing was a big and unexpected surprise to the scientific community. And as someone who had secondary amenorrhoea for three years and whose periods then just started again, and for which no cause could be found either way, I have little respect for people who seem to think they know and understand every cause of temporary or permanent disruptions to women’s periods.[/quote]
Telling someone they must have a vaccine does not allay perfectly reasonable anxieties. Talking to them in a non-patronising and dismissive manner is most effective at allaying reasonable anxiety.

but that's literally not what I'm saying or how I have posted?

all my posts have said no one should feel pressured into having the vaccine if they don't want to, and equally everyone should be able to make this decision based on evidence, not scary misinformation floating around on social media

@Walkaround

And guess what - when I had no periods, I was told I was unlikely to be ovulating regularly, or even at all.

but women aren't routinely reported prolonged amenorrhoea from the AZ vaccine?

AFAIA common symptoms include changes in menstrual duration and frequency, increased dysmenorrhea, and worsened PMS symptoms

As I've said previously, this needs more research and understanding into if it is a causal link and why it's happening, but posting that this means fertility is impacted because women won't be ovulating is simply not true and is fueling anxiety (including in women who have already been vaccinated)

@speckledostrichegg - some people are reporting prolonged amenorrhoea. I’m sure this is most often because of their age and the start of perimenopause, but as someone whose body appears to be particularly sensitive to environmental or other factors in terms of disruption to my menstrual cycle, if I were younger and wanting to conceive right now, I would have been a bit concerned by the number of people reporting menstrual changes - because nobody knew why or could do anything about this happening to me last time around.

Btw, I would still have had the vaccine regardless even if trying to conceive, as I consider a vaccine to be far less likely to disrupt my menstrual cycle than prolonged illness with covid, but I would definitely have been anxious about it, because I have never taken my periods for granted.

A lot of care worker also have zero hours work contracts and are scared they will miss pay if they take time of work, if they get side effects and need time off from work.